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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 1875)
Lw... THE HESPERIAN" STUDENT. tj&iimm The last number of tho Ala. University Monthly is unusually good, oven for It. Wo acknowledge llio receipt of u copy of the Alumni Journal, Illinois Wesloyau University. We nre much pleased with it. The Hesplan Society, of Ilersoliel Col lege, has lately sold its library for $!K0, proceeds being applied to the building of a line now yacht. CMtyiVm. There is an unmistakable evidence of intellectual advancement for you! Tho Archangel, from Oregon, continues to be as full of vitality as ever. We are always glad to receive It. The MeKcndree Repository pays tho HksI'KIUAN' a very pretty compliment, which we can sincerely return by saying( Unit the Repository is one of the nwst welcome visitors to our sanctum. Rut, my friend, you have paid us an other com lilitnent, unconsciously, perhaps, in the same issue, which we value more highly. If you will please lake notice of tho re inuikablc similarity between the intro duction to your Criticism on Exchanges, in your November issue, and the introduc tion to our " Notes on Exchanges," in our October issue, you will tinil another proof that the ideas of great minds run in the same channel. This will doubtless be mutually satisfactory to both you and us. The High School Is improving rapidly in literary merit. The University Review for November is unusually interesting. The Prltehett School Institute, hasuoro solid matter in tho November issue, than the former. The Chronicle criticises a paragraph from our article on "Incentives to Politi-i-ul Life," in a manner unworthy of a pa per of its standing; for if we gel the idea meant to be conveyed by the editor's ridi cule, he would have found, had he been candid enough to read the whole article, before making his conclusion, that the whole spirit of the piece was to censure the very idea for which he takes us to task. There is too much such hup lin.nrd criticising done by college papers, simply more reasonable still, between error and error? Between human prejudice nnd tho spurious conceptions of tho finite mind, foisted upon the spirit of truth, tho manifestation of tho Infinite Intelligence, contained in either? For tho essential element of er ror is discord and chaos. Perhaps there has never been a thinking mind, Pagan, Mahometan, or Sceptic, Christian fanatic, or absolute Atheist, which, In spite of self, or prejudice or will, has not been conscious of trying to solve these questions, and thereby, vir tually, confessing that there is a grave question to bo solved. Clearly, if the last question proposed can be answered afllrm atively, all the others will really have been answered, and It will be comparatively easy to detect tho elements of prejudice in discussion and belief, in reference to this matter. It is not, however, the bold presumption of this article to attempt to elaborate a systematic investigation of tho existence ot that absolute Infinite First Priiiciiile of thimrs to enouire loir- ically whether there is really a great Mys tery, to which ultimate religious and sci entific ideas all lend, and to which they all bear unimpeachable testimony. This truth may safely be taken for granted, on a priori and prima facie evidence, refer ring for the direct argument to those ph 11 osophers who have been able to discuss the subject thoroughly. Hut it is our pur. pose to point out a few of the elements of bias, observable by all in the common oc curronces and experiences of life, which have blinded the eye of judgment, In both science and religion, and prevented It from discerning the fundamental verity upon which each is based, and rendering them almost Insensible.that they are natural sisters, born of the same parent, the con sciousness of the Inllnite, and destined for harmony, loving coadjutors, and the conservators of tho happiness of all moral beings not for strife and hatred. The arguments which will here be presented are such, as the dlliiront. thouirh humble, disciple of Herbert Spencer and Sir William llamil- A.... ...!!! ......,.JIIIIII .111 ItttlttlU l.) till space, when wit, or sense is lacking. . l" wmi.6.... . . i 1. What, then, arc some ot the a prion Our friend Evans is making a lively pa-1 mis0y f0r believing that the ultimate per of the hnctll Register, which iimkos j(jcll ()r l fonns of religions, or oxplunu- IN appearance on our table regularly. , limw u(,i,r. Kvistoneo. First Cause, are vww " -- -nT ' Spencer and Hamilton have shown by lr resistible logic. Thus all forms of religious belief, from the grossest Fetlchism to Christianity, and, as can be shown, all notions of sci ence of what the nature of the Potentiality, expressed by all phenomena, Is, from tho crude and vague conceptions of Thalos and lleraolitus, to those of Ilerschel and Tyndall, are equally enoneous and un thinkable, but each predicates in reality, an ultimate truth, the same fact. That fact if, that there is something to be explained, but a something which can never be explained. This the Atheist and tho Pantheist, by denying tho existence of any creative force outside of matter itself, proves no less clearly than tho Monotheist, who claims that all such potency exists in some external agency. For, after all, if thoUniverse is self-existent, self-created, or created by an external something, how came it so? If there is a First Cause, a creating God, ho is a Cause or Creator, only in relation to the thing caused or created. The Cause and the Caused nre correlatives there is a relation existing between thorn. If a relation, they mutu ally limit one another: Hence, the First Cause Is not inllnite Is not a llrst cause at all. For how came this relation? We must conceive of it as caused by some thing, If caused at all. This something would bo superior and prior to tho First Cause. Again this second First Cause must have its relation, and this cause and relation, their cause and so on in Inllnite series. Here we find ourselves lost in a bound less ocean of mystery; no amount of re search or sailing will over llml its limits it has none. Is it not enough for us that we are conscious of a Power beyond our ken? Is not that Existence, which is inconceivable, superior and more worthy of reverence, than a being which Is con ceivable, and can be represented in thought with form and attributes? 2. It has been seen from the foregoing, guilty, is tho unceasing ell'ort to drug down the Infinite within the narrow scope ofhumuueonceptton. Anthropomorphism, tho attempt to represent the Inllnite First Cause In sensible forms, and as possessed of atti Unites like human beings, oi , at lent, that human beings can apprehend, however pure and holy, has been the cliicl means of self-degradat'on, and has excited the con tempt of logic and reason. The blocks and stones of Fetlchism, tho innumerable sen suous,even sensual. ideals of lIindoo,Egyp Man, or Grecian Polytheism, tho Mnnitau of the Indian, the Jehovah of Monotheism, all are mere caricatures of the Inllnite, more or less crude, or debusing, uncord ing to the development of the subject. In short, us Mr. Spencer has observed, tile vice of Religion, the pretext for strife, is, that it is essentially irreligious. Here, also, Science has decidedly the advantage; she is more consistent, inas much as she predicates more nearly than Religion itself, the unconditioned First Principle, without attribute., divine or human. In other words, Science is more sincerely religious than Religion itself. Certainly that religion which shall predi cate absolutely nothing of the Creator, save the consciousness of His existence when tho proper time shall come, when the average human intellect shall be de veloped sulliciently to grasp so abstract 'a conception will be grander and moro worthy, than any system of Monotheism. It has been necessary, in the past, to as sign attributes and form to the Eternal, in order to satisfy man's Unite conception. The conception has grown immensely more refined and more abstract, but per haps tho time is not even yet, when tho conception of an unconditioned First Cause can be allirmed, with safety, by the masses. While Science, by keeping more nearly within her proper sphere, lias tho advan tage, she is not entirely guiltleso of con tributing to this element of prejudice. While she justly contemns Religion for The lttijUU r wants us to tell .what kind ot a tiling is a " tony church." We did speak Identical with tho ultimate idea, or expla nation of Nature, Heing, Lilo, Forms of if a "tony congregation," and might, on at((,r iVeied by science? a pinch, give some sort of an idea of what was meant thereby. Hut wo really dure not venture fur into the discussion of the ological questions. Hesides, Ide, you know you nre not any more familiar with "meeting" things than ourselves, and would not comprehend a definition should wc oiler one. So, pray excuse us, pnrd. ELEMENTS OF PREJUDICE IN RE LIGIOUS DISCUSSION. Wherefore exists this Irrepressible con Hid between Religion and Science ? Why have tho dogmas of Creed and the (tog mas of Theory ever been waging btubborn and uncharitable war? Whence this bitter prejudice, this enmity, this contempt on tho one hand, nnd abhorrence on tho other? Is Relig ion all truth and Science all error, oi ls Science all truth, uad Religion all evil abominable superstition, weak "ess and priestcraft? Is tho conllidt which exists, a contest between truth nnd truth, which is absurd, or, moro probable, between truth and error, or, () The first witness wo may summon is consciousness. Every individual Is ab solutely unable to rid himself of the con viction, the consciousness, that there is something which is unknowable, unthink able; a something which transcends Con ception, and which lies back, and consti tutes the cause ot every phenomenon in thimrs, and is shadowed forth by all the noumena arising in tho intuition, call that however grotesque or ignoble the her irreligion, she lias been guilty ot tno form which Unite conception bus forced sumo oll'eiiee. Whenever she transcends Religion or Science to assume, yet, as Mr. the investigation of the laws and modes Spencer says, there bus been fo'und in each of phenomena, and attempts to ic-ssiga "A soul of goodness in tilings evil'' and , conditions to the Potentiality of which "A soul of truth in thiugsrroiieoua." Since each is based on an identical ulti mate truth, why this conUiot? Why does human intellect do violence to Itself, its own consciousness and labor to create antagonism, and stir up discord, where none exists? 00 The llrst element of discord appears to bo this: Each contending party aban dons, to some extent, its legitimate Held of action, and encroaches upon the prov- lu-.n of the other. In so tur us eltlier is phenomena are the expression, slio is guil ty of irreligion, of anthropomorphism. She may safely dellne the laws of Heat, Light, Life, Magnetism or Electricity; but when she attempts to show that the ultimate Force, of which each phenome non is u manifestation, is a d I Heron t foieo in each, or to tell what the force is, then Science is encroaching on the domain of Nescience, of Religion. (;) Luck of candor in reasoning is the second element of discord. Tho mortal thus guilty, is it degraded and inlU'cl to ! dread on the part of one, to submit her itself. Tho scientiilc element ami the re- liglous demon' of the mind are only dlf- Intellectual UGod r First Cause, tho Absolute, the W modes of intcllee mil acton. Innte, the One, or the Many, us you "There must ever u main, there ore, wo no Ho Is equally conscious that he antithetical modes of mental action. ' , he Lull v of being conscious of Throughout all future lime, us now the possesses the faculty such an Existence. () Again the three theories for goner ically theroaro but threo-of accounting for the origin of the Universe all lead to the sumo result. Atheism, which touches that tho Universe is solf-cxistont; Pantho ism, which teaches that it is self-created; Theism, which teaches that it was created by some external agency, some dolty-ull ultimately load to contradlc tion. all are absolutely beyond tho boun darics of thought and conception, as , !(.,.. II" ....1 ,.,!., human mum may uuuup nsun, "t j with ascertained phenomena and their re lutione, but also with that unascertained something which phenomena nnd their relations imply." The llrst, tho scientific olomont, has to do, legitimately, only with the laws of phenomena, the modes tin ough which the Absolute manifesto itself. The second tho religious clement.predicatcsthe existence of a power buck of all phenom ena tho unknowable Mystery. Tho great error of whleli Religion is dogmas and beliefs to the test of rigorous, logical criticism, and the tendency on tho part of the other conscious of her hon esty of purpose, and the certainty of her truths to ignore entirely the religious element of the intellect, and scotl' at ov erything savoring of the supersensible, or supernatural, which Faith based upon tho unshaken consciousness of eternal Exis tence, afllrms, are ouch reprehensible spirits. Here, too, Science bus tho advan tago; for time, persecution, and criticism, only strengthen her walls, and moro firm ly establish her principles While Rolig ion has always, after n bitter nnd tenacious struggle, been forced to yield. One by one sho bus laid aside her ideals, to adopt now ones, more general and abstract. Nearer wmww.' i ii. ii bwi-ju'i.i.ct"- SjKSE
